Solo Assassin

[Marty4]

Hey all. Not sure if anyone remembers me, I haven't been around here in several years and was mostly active over in the IWD forums. Anyway, I recently picked up BG2 again and, after running a good mage with a full party through BG1-BG2-ToB, decided to try out soloing an evil assassin. Minor chapter 1-2 spoilers mentioned.

I've run into two issues since entering the Planar Prison that I hope somebody might be able to shed some light on. One is a mechanical issue, and one is a gameplay issue. I'm patched and used the dungeon-be-gone mod to skip Chateau Irenicus, but am otherwise playing the vanilla game.

Firstly, I have recently had some issues while attempting to backstab. I'll move in stealthed behind my target and attack, but my character will exit stealth very quickly before making an attack. No missed swing, no stoneskin, no nothing, he just makes a "fake attack" animation, de-stealths, and gets stomped. It has happened against everything from humanoids to wyverens, and is quite aggravating. I can usually recover and run off to re-hide, but wasting weapon poison at best or allowing a mage to get off a contingency at worst is something I'd like to avoid.

Secondly, I'm stumped when going up against enemies that can apparently see through stealth. I typically like to rush in with guns ablaze in my usual full-party games, so I wasn't even aware that enemies could do this. I aborted the "skinner murderer" quest because Rune Assassins kept backstabbing me while I was invisible, and now in the Planar Prison I am at a loss for what to do against the Master of Thralls, who pummels me from afar with various gaze attacks no matter what I do to try to get close. I'll have to reload to a previous save from before entering the Prison if I can't figure out how to kill this guy, and I'd prefer not to give up my Boots of Speed.

Thanks all in advance for any help you can offer!

[Xanthul]

Thieves aren't really my thing so my info might not be 100% accurate here but I'll do my best.

- About getting out of stealth before backstabbing, the only thing I can think of is that either you're missing the first attack (enable attack rolls in the log to make sure) or you're using a very slow weapon (high speed factor) so you actually drop stealth before the attack is made.
- About enemies that see through stealth, I think it won't work but you could try equipping the cloak of non detection and see if it helps. I think the cloak only helps vs magical detection but it's worth a shot.
- About the slave thrall, I can only give you general advice that applies to most soloing: get as many potions and summoning trinkets as you can, that will help you a lot specially at lower levels. If you don't have any right now, you can either try to hit and run at ranged if you have magical arrows or just reload a previous save and come back when you're higher & better equiped.

Hope it helps, hopefully someone that plays assassins will show and give you some more information.

Good luck.

[Marty4]

Thanks for the response!

The backstabbing issue comes before I ever see an attack roll (so no, I'm not missing), and I'm using a weapon with a speed of 1, so it shouldn't be that.

I'll go find myself a means of non-detection and some summon items and see if that helps matters.

[Armen]

stand up toe-to-toe fights for see-through-stealth creatures are a bit of a nightmare for low level thief solos

potion buffs and summons are a very good plan as is ilbathra short sword (for mirror image)

to be honest, after so many run-throughs i've decided that boots of speed are a 'saving real life time' issue and i cheat them in once i've earned 15,000 to donate to a temple but you might not want to do that of course

one thing on your coming out of stealth my understanding is that it works like this:

% chance to go into stealth = (hide in shadows + move silently) / 2

but

% chance to stay in stealth = move silently on its own

do you have all your stealth points in hide in shadows?

another slightly cheesey option for the master of thralls would be to overuse the quicksave-reload option to try to set a bunch of traps to get over this one encounter at least

[SixOfSpades]

Dropping out of Stealth before you can land your hit: The only things that come to mind are
1) Somebody in the immediate area has a True Sight running, or
2) You're failing your Move Silently rolls (and just not noticing). When this happens, you still have a few seconds of invisibility left, but you will be revealed--even if you're just about to attempt a Backstab.
Non-Detection will protect you from the first of those circumstances, but not the second. Either way, what you describe is a curious effect, one I don't recall having been reported before.

Enemies that can see through Stealth: It's actually a fairly common ability, usually possessed by Fiends, Dragons, Kou-Toans, and powerful Undead such as Liches. This is just one of the many joys you will experience from your choice to play a solo Assassin.

For what it's worth, I would like to point out that No Way In Hell would I classify the Planar Prison as an appropriate Chapter 2 quest, especially if you're soloing. I have trouble there even with full parties in late Chapter 3.

[Marty4]

Hey, thanks for the replies and sorry for my own late response. I reloaded to a previous save and regained my usual backstabbing prowess, but quickly got bored of the "one-trick pony" aspect of soloing an assassin. I wound up rerolling an evil F/T protagonist with Edwin, Viconia, and Korgan tagging along.

While I'm asking questions:
I'm thinking about finally giving Tactics a try, now that I'm an older and more experienced gamer than when I first picked up this game. I'm finding my stride in my current game, and it's actually gotten quite easy now that I've emerged from the Underdark (PC plus simalacrum, activating Ring of Gaxx's imp Haste effect for 9 ApR while popping Assassination... yeesh!), so I think I might be ready to step my game up after my current one is finished.

I'm still a little intimidated, though. Aspects of Tactics that I've read about like imp Ilyich and Kuriosan make me wonder if I'm volunteering to slam my forehead against my monitor for hours on end. Anyone have words of wisdom as to how I know if my technical knowledge and skill are up to the task?

[Armen]

i'm tactically pretty rubbish (my arcane spell casting for example is childish) so tend to bash or hide or protect or reolad my way through

i find most of tactics is ok - just harder enough - toughest spawns, smarter mages, scarier undead etc. all good

you should cope (and benefit from the improved XP - spirit trolls - mm . . .)

the two components you mention are ridiculous though
improved pit fiends was pretty ridiculous too when i last downloaded it
and so was/is improved faldon (although the rest of the improved druid grove is good)

some of the higher-level random city encounters are pretty strong as well but worth experiencing i think

actually give ilyich a go but not with a character you care about

[Marty4]

I'll give it a shot, though picking up Starcraft 2 will probably divert my attention somewhat.

I'm aware of being able to pick and choose which components to use in Tactics, but I'm fuzzy about how that can be changed game-to-game. If I got to the Acid Kensai, for example, and found myself utterly unable to continue on, could I uninstall him to skip it? Or is that file hosed?

[Armen]

sorry, i don't know about removing components mid-game - the tactics readme should have that sort of thing i'd have thought

[Sever]

Originally Posted by Marty4 I'm aware of being able to pick and choose which components to use in Tactics, but I'm fuzzy about how that can be changed game-to-game. If I got to the Acid Kensai, for example, and found myself utterly unable to continue on, could I uninstall him to skip it? Or is that file hosed?

Yes, as long as you have a valid save point, you can install and uninstall individual components of Tactics at your leisure. It doesn't mess up the installation order of patches and mods, even if none of the Tactics components are active.